


swallow your pride

by wyverning



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Green Creek AU, M/M, Soulmates, Witch!Neil, a what-if spinoff of running with the wolves, andrew is a born werewolf instead of a turned one, flirting diguised as threats, references to canon-typical trauma and violence, so inspired by queenbelladonna's fic running with the wolves it isn't even funny, werewolf!Andrew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-21 15:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21076976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyverning/pseuds/wyverning
Summary: "Maybe you'll be less pathetic with a weapon to defend yourself," Andrew suggests, though really it's more of a command. The weight of the knife in his pocket feels like a bad idea.





	swallow your pride

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [running with the wolves](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20688269) by [QueenBelladonna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenBelladonna/pseuds/QueenBelladonna). 

> AHHHHH I LOVE [QUEENBELLADONNA'S](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenBelladonna/pseuds/QueenBelladonna) AFTG GREEN CREEK AU SO MUCH, I COULDN'T HELP BUT WRITE A FIC OF THEIR FIC.
> 
> not too much prior knowledge needed about tj klune's series other than that born werewolves create little carvings of wolves that they are meant to give their soulmates when they find them! andrew, naturally, would find some way to turn this into a threat. this is more of a "what if" scenario — in running with the wolves, andrew is a turned wolf, but i couldn't help but wonder what he'd be like if he and aaron were born as wolves rather than humans.
> 
> don't think TOO hard about the actual plot that might potentially exist behind this drabble, pls.

Andrew puts every ounce of energy into his carving, because it's the only thing that matters.

It's insignificant that he's doing this at seventeen instead of five. Insignificant that Aaron has had close to two decades' worth of experience on him, knows more about their blood and what their wolves need to survive than Andrew probably ever will. Insignificant that trading his tether to Cass for one with a brother who despises him for tearing out their mother's throat means that almost nobody even bothers with him.

Tilda had never been a good mother, but at least she'd been _there_ to explain what the fuck was happening to her son when she wasn't too drugged to function. Andrew's cobbled-together understanding of why he'd craved physical touch despite the pain it always brought in each foster home painted only a partial picture, but no one can fault him for being abandoned by a pack before he was old enough to turn.

He's teetered on the edge of becoming feral for so long, it's almost comfortable. If the others fear him for excelling at toeing the line between beta and omega, then all the better. He doesn't need them.

Everything else is insignificant, anyway.

It's difficult, whittling away the soft wood of the knife's handle. With the metal of the blade protruding from the bottom, his grip has to compensate for the bite of the weaponry, and his resulting nicks into the wood are almost as ugly as the ones on his arms. 

It's a pipedream, he knows, pretending that anyone will ever own this except him. There is no merit in the foolish hope of _soulmates,_ or people that will ever see Andrew as anything but the monster he is.

Still, he carves a semblance of himself into the wood. It's a small mercy in a wave of unyielding meaninglessness that his carving looks better than Aaron's does.

* * *

Neil is an impossibility, a cosmic mistake that's going to vanish into obscurity the moment Andrew wraps his mind around him. It's why it makes everything even worse when he realizes that Aaron's no longer his tether.

"I hate you," Andrew says, and means every word of it. Neil's tanned skin is an absolute wreck, and his bruises and cuts have only begun to heal. He smiles when Andrew speaks, and the cut that bisects his lower lip splits open again at the motion. His blood is a sharp coppery tang in the air, and Andrew can't take his eyes off the pink of Neil's tongue as it darts out to lick clean the scarlet beads.

Andrew's going to give Riko a death so bloody that he'll grant himself a moment of vicious pleasure as he eviscerates the other wolf.

"Maybe you'll be less pathetic with a weapon to defend yourself," Andrew suggests, though really it's more of a command. The weight of the knife in his pocket feels like a bad idea.

Neil's mouth parts, likely in some sorry attempt at defending his magic and his too-friendly familiar, but Andrew doesn't wait to hear it. It's easy work to plunge the knife into the wall beside Neil's head, silencing all of protests, and the crude wolf carved into its hilt stares back at Andrew mockingly.

Something burns deep in his gut.

"I don't want a knife," Neil says, finally. Averts his gaze from Andrew's own to the knife, unfazed that it's mere inches from being embedded in his stupid, reckless skull.

"Tough shit," Andrew responds. It means nothing that Neil doesn't realize what's happening. Runaway witches with a tendency to shy away from pack magic wouldn't understand, anyway. His mother probably told him carvings were cursed.

There's no way an idiot like Josten gets it, not when Andrew himself isn't even sure why he's initiating something like this when Kevin's witch is an almost-guaranteed flight risk, but still Neil's words are thick and heavy with meaning when he says, "Thank you."

His fingers wrap around the knife and pull. One of the many tattoos on his arms unfolds off of his skin and around the glinting blade, encasing it in a sheath made of magic and intention.

Andrew's never hated him more.


End file.
